Screams in the Dark by Anna Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

us.’
    ‘I know,’ the other girl said. ‘You can’t go about stabbing folk. The thing that annoys me is the fucking vigilantes are just neds from round here who’d stab anybody. They’re all wasters.’
    ‘Do you know what age the guy was?’ Rosie asked. ‘Is he alive?’
    ‘Dunno. He’s in the hospital. Heard he was quite far through.’
    ‘Where did he come from?’ Rosie said. ‘I mean what block of flats?’
    ‘That one.’ The girl pointed. ‘I heard he was Turkish. He’s been here for a few months. The vigilantes attacked him and stabbed him out in the street last night. Just picked on him. I heard the commotion – the ambulance and stuff.’
    Rosie watched as the girls walked off in the direction of the city. She felt a pang of guilt at her relief that the stabbed refugee was Turkish, then quickly realised that with Emir’s looks he could quite easily have been mistaken for Turkish.
    She crossed the car park towards the block where she’d first seen Emir standing in tears that day. Rosie got into the tiny lift just before the doors closed and stood alongside two women who looked like refugees. They stoodbunched together in the rickety aluminium box that smelled of piss, and she prayed it wouldn’t break down between floors. She gave the women a friendly smile, but they looked intimidated just by her presence. Nobody spoke, and as the lift shuddered slowly towards the twelfth floor, Rosie read the graffiti scrawled in front of them. ‘Go home’ it said in thick black letters. She glanced at the refugee women who were staring flatly at the walls and wondered where home was for them and how it must have felt when they fled, knowing that all their tomorrows would be filled with uncertainty and fear. And to come here, tired and wretched, only to be a victim of some lowlife vigilantes who hadn’t the wit or compassion to comprehend just how much these people had lost.
    They all got out of the lift together, and walked along the corridor, Rosie checking the door numbers until she came to number nine. The two women passed her, but glanced back suspiciously as she knocked on Emir’s door. She watched as the others went into a flat three doors down. She stood and waited. No answer. She knocked again, this time louder and for longer. Still no answer. She bent down and looked through the letter box and into the stillness of the long hallway. It looked chilly and dismal, but from what she could see at the edge of the living room it was furnished and clean. And, crucially, no smell. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d peered through a letter box to be hit by the stench of a dead body.
    ‘Emir?’ Rosie shouted through the letter box. ‘Emir? Are you there?’ Nothing.
    She stood for a few moments, not quite knowing what to do. Her mobile rang. It was Don.
    ‘Where’s this guy, Rosie? I thought you were bringing him down?’
    ‘I was, Don, but I can’t get him on his mobile. Tried all night and this morning, but no answer, so I’m up here now at his door. There’s no sign of him.’ Rosie spoke quietly.
    ‘You up at the Red Road? I was going to buzz you on that. Some Turkish guy got stabbed last night by these nut-job vigilantes. That’s three attacks in the past month.’
    ‘Is the victim definitely Turkish?’ Rosie said.
    ‘Yep. Definitely a Turk. He was here with his parents.’
    ‘What is it with these thugs who are doing this?’
    ‘Just scumbags, Rosie. Pure pond-life.’ He paused. ‘So what you going to do if you can’t find him. Not much I can do this end if he’s done a runner.’
    ‘I know. But it’s a real bastard. I know he was telling the truth, Don. The guy was terrified. Maybe he just got off his mark. But tell you what, Don, my worry is that somebody got to him.’
    ‘You mean the guys who took his mate? None of his story makes sense, Rosie. You do know that, don’t you? I mean, why would anyone lift two guys off the street and take them outside of the city and beat